SKITTISH ARM “The Outside Inflation” C64 (PSI LAB)

Floridian weather is not this dour. You look up at cloudless skies, you smile. Yes, I happen to be in Florida, and although I’m far from Sarasota (Skittish Arm’s home base), I can’t imagine it being much different. We’re all on a huge peninsula, after all. (Homer Simpson calls it “America’s wang,” for whatever that’s worth.) There’s an ocean breeze on our coasts. We breathe it.

We Floridians do have a pretty dour reputation, I guess, as being America’s clown child babies, whose propensity for unconsidered acts of utter reactionary madness has inspired nation- and worldwide derision (see, for example, our old pal “Florida Man” on Twitter). Not totally undeserved, all that. Anyway, Skittish Arm perhaps internalizes that instead of the sunshine, a view of the world where it’s crumbling all around us and the interior of the singular person is all that’s left to grasp onto. And even that’s crumbling, as presented by the positively Basinski-esque disintegration of Skittish Arm’s sound sources. The press kit also mentions Eno and I also mention the Caretaker. That decay is beautiful, sad, and a complete logical next step. But the Sarasota producer isn’t content to wallow – embrace along with Skittish Arm the gentle path toward oblivion on tracks such as “Assembled Tenderness,” “Gleam of Peace,” and “Peaking Warmth.” There’s joy and freedom in letting go, in setting yourself apart, in approaching life from a vantage point where others are connection points in a vast network of life as it slowly becomes untenable on this planet.

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It should be obvious, this is a webzine we created to put cassette releases and the format of cassette itself on a pedestal. We are not doing this to be some sort of cassette snob, more-DIY-than-thou elitists or anything. We are doing it because all the formats that sound can be presented on are exciting and provide unique ways of shaping the listeners experience... so it is a shame that any one of these formats would fall by the wayside. Cassettes provide a listening experience that is similar to vinyl because of the intermission/moment of pause created by changing sides of the tape, but can be of almost any length between 30 seconds a side to an hour. Tapes can also be listened to in a car or while jogging.While today this format helps keep the home label alive, its almost a dream to remember that once every musician from Michael Jackson to REM had their releases on cassette. Cassettes were a legitimate format, not just for the DIY underground. Maybe we (thats you too) are the last guardians of this format. Maybe someone, someday will popularize cassettes again. In the meantime we keep the reels turning. A little offering because at least there are a few of you that know there is more than one god of this land.